Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 Impact Press Conference

A Press conference held on July 20, 1994 is presented. Leading off the press conference was an announcement about a major discovery that was made possible from the study of the impact. The participants in the panel were: (1) Roger Yelle from the University of Arizona, (2) Renee Prange of the Institute Astrophysique Spatiale, (3) Lucy McFadden of the University of California, and the University of Maryland, (4) David Levy, the co-discoverer of the Shoemaker-Levy comet. The moderator for this conference was Steven Maran of the Goddard Space Flight Center. Roger Yelle, who had been working on analyzing spectrographic evidence, made the announcement that sulfur in the form of S2 had been discovered. There was also discussion about the interactions of the atmosphere with the fragments. This interaction had caused a shift in the aurora of Jupiter. The observations of the impact sites made by amatuers were discussed. A summary of the observations from different observatories was also given. Included in these observations were reports from the airborne Kuiper Observatory Telescope and the McDonald observatory.